According to The Australian Financial Review, "robot workers" could lead to a 40 per reduction in low skilled jobs and cut costs for business in half, according to a major report on automation.
Intelligent, learning computers are the next step in automation - several generations ahead of the robots people are used to seeing in factories.
ANZ Banking Group, IBM and Westpac are among large companies moving to embrace robot technology to automate back office, finance and human resources functions as the IT automation market burgeons from just $US183 million in 2013 to $US1.98 billion by 2020.
ANZ's general manager of group hubs, Simen Munter, said they planned to deploy 100 "robots" next year, after running a pilot program across the bank particularly in its finance, human resources and mortgage processing departments.
But Mr Munter and other employers are at pains to argue robot computers will not replace humans but eliminate mundane, routine tasks such as payroll, invoices and closing accounts so that workers can focus on more high-level tasks.
Mr Munter said their pilot program showed that employees who were impacted had improved job satisfaction.
"A lot of people are suspicious but there is a tremendous amount of work which we don't need to do anymore and no one is regretting those advancements."